THE DANGERS. S40” 


{DUTIES OF THE HOUR, 


AN ADDRESS 


DELIVERBD AT 


| » CONCERT HALL, PHILADELPHIA, 


MARCH 15, 1866, 


HON. WM. D. KELLEY. 


cla WASHINGTON: 
: CHRONICLE BOOK AND JOB PRINT. 
1866. sa 





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THE 


DANGERS AND DUTIES OF THE HOUR. 


a” 


Oaths are not an adequate foundation for go- 
vernment. All history attests this fact. A 
republic which is not sustained by the intelli- 
gent apprehension of its vital principles, and 
their hearty acceptance by its people, is in con- 
siant danger of overthrow. When the sun 
went below the horizon on the 1st of December, 
1851, France was, under the constitution of 
1848, a Republic. It was Monday, the evening 
on which the President, whose inaugural cath 
bound him to maintain the Republic, held his 
reception at the Elyste. There was nothing un- 
usualin the number or character of the guests. 
They were, probably, each in a general way 
known to the others; but could each have 
looked into the hearts of all, and beheld their 
secret workings, the story of the night would 
not have read asit does. The brilliant assem- 
blage embraced some of the most loyal friends 
of the Republic. Count de Morny was noi seen 
by the guests who first departed. He had 
manifested his devotion to the drama, and the 
habitues of the theatres had seen him among 
them early in the evening; but the company 
S -parated early, and at 11 o’clock there were but 
three guests with Louis Napoleon. They were 
De Morny, Maupas, and St. Arnaud, and, at- 
tended by Colonel Beville, an orderly or subor- 


dinate officer of the President, they followed him | 


to his cabinet. It was almost midnight, and 
the republic still lived. 
dying hours. 
when the first beams of the ascending eun lit 
the spires of Paris the empire was in embryo, 
and the republic, with the preceding day, was a 
thing of the past. 

Colonel Beville was soon despatched to the 
State printing-oflice with a sealed packet. It 
contained the copy of proclamations with which 
the streets of Paris were to be placarded before 
daylight and the outgoing mails burdened. One 
of them asserted that the Assembly (the Con- 
gress of France) was a hot-bed of plots and con- 
spiracies ; announced its dissolution, aud 


placed Paris and the twelve surrounding De-,| 


partments under martiallaw. Abont 120’clock 
word was brought the conspirators that a bat- 
talion of gendarmie surrounded the printing- 
oflice, and that under the supervision of the Di- 
rector the oyerawed printers were putting the 








proclamations in type. The President executed 
letters removing his Cabinet and appointing 
Morny to the Secretaryship of the Interior. He 
had some days before recalled from Algeria 8t. 
Arnaud, the Jobn B. Floyd of France, and made 
him Minister or Secretary of War, the cflicer 
whose order,- within the range of military 
duty, was law to the generals of the Repub- 
lic. At twoo’clock St. Arnaud sigued an order 
that bodies of troops which he had put under 
command of his corrupt partisans should oc- 
cupy the garden of the ‘uileries, the Quai 
d’ursay, the Place de la Concordi, and be so 
posted in the vicinity of the Elysée as to protect 
its inmates if necessary. Maupas, prefectof the 
police, in another apartment held separate inter- 
views with a number of commissaries, and, 
under the pretext that he apprehended an arrival 
of foreign refugees made arrangements for the 
simultaueous seizure and incarceration of 
seventy-cightof the most distinguished generals, 
inost trustworthy officers and members of the 
Assembly, (Congress, ) and most courageous aud 
most eloquent popular orators of France. 
With the execution of this order the revolation 
was accomplished. When day broke the army 
was without generals who loved the Republic 
more faithfully than Lee and Johnson love ours, 
and the Assembly (Congress) was withous the 


officers to bring it to order or a fearless repre- 
Let us contemplate its 
Jt will not detain us long, for | 


sentative of the people to demand that the con- 
stitution be maintained and treason made odious 
by the punishment of conspiring traitors. 

The American people need apprehend no sud- 
den overthrow of their Government like this, 
The power of France was in Paris; it flowed 
thence to the boundaries of the Republic. It 
is not so with us; 1n our country it resides 
equally in every organized political community 
throughout our limits. Washington, not the 
centre of political power, is the mere focus at 
which the people’s will concentrates and ex- 
presses itself. We, therefore, need not appre- 
hend acoup @etat or sudden overthrow of the 
Government. Garrett Davis, who aptly illus- 
trates the loyalty which commends men to the 
confidence of Andrew Johnson, may, from the 
floor of the Senate, sound the temper of the 
people on the subject, and, in accordance with 
his recorded oath, press such a suggestion upon 


/ 


the President; the amnestied rebels and jubilant 
Copperheads may borrow his own seditious lan- 
guage and denounce Congress as an irresponsible 
‘Central Directory,”? and their organs say, as 
did the Chigago Times, that 

If the rump Voneress shall not speedity abandon 
its seditious, revolutionary, snd lawless practices; 
if it suall persist in excluding the representatives 
of eleven states from their rightful seats, and in 
exercising the powers of the Congress of the United 
states, wedo not hesitate to declare that it will 
become the solemn duty of President Johneon to 
constitute himseif the Cromwe!! of the time, and 
dissolve the rump by military power. 

They who defended Mrs. Surratt and 
her co-conspirators, who justified the con- 
duct of Wirz, who mourn the martyred Booth, 
and proclaim their belief that the providence, 
dark and inscrutable as it was, which transferred 
the executive power of the country from the 
hands of Abraham Lincoln was a beneficent 
one, and who are now the familiars of his suc- 
eessor, donbiless advise him to adopt thi 
course; and his many new counsellors, chosen 
from the perjured but acute leaders of the late 
rebellion, will trouble him with no suze: sions 
of dissent from a scheme so entirely coincident 
in purpose with the lawless and inhuman war 
they waged against us. But this is not among 
our dangers. The President, though he is 
sometimes indiscreet, is more adroit than 
these advisers. The foundations of our 
institutions are too broad, too well apprehended, 
and too highly appreciated to permit us to con- 
sider this as a practical danger. The sourcesof 
out anxieties are more subtle. What we have 
to fear is not the change in the form of our go- 
vernment, but infidelity to its principles by those 
who administer it. Let me not be misunder- 
stood. 1 have no apprehension of serious conse- 
quences, My faithinthe people knows no doubt. 
‘hey understand their rights and will maintain 
the independence of the popular branch of Con- 
gress and avert thisdanger. The inteliigence of 
tie American people is not the subject of idle 
declamation. Whatever may have been the im- 
oression in Europe on this point prior to Mr. 
uincoln’s proclamation of the 15th of April, 
1861, calling for seventy-five thousand troops, 
xii men now know that the American people 
onderstand their institutions in general and in 
detail; that they cherish the epirit, and are 
ready to peril psoperty and life in their defence. 
bat we must not forget that that which violence 
20d open assault cannot accomplish is some- 
‘imes achieved by frand and deception; and her-in 
s the source of all ourdangers. A subtle though 
narrow intellect, an elastic conscience, intense 
egotism, and the control of almost boundless 
patronage, make a combination that cannot be 
despised in any controversy. 

The love of honor or emoluments is not pecu- 
tiar to the American people; nor does it, as 
satirists, cynics, and the victims of oft recurring 
disappointment declare, spring ffom vanity or 
over-weaning love of self. The multiform and 
bountifally endowed charities in which our 
country pre-eminently abounds; thestory of the 
Sanitary, the Christian, the Union, and the 
Wreedmen’s Commissions, through the hands of 
which so many tensof millions of voluntary 
contributions have flowed ; the majestic march 
of our civilization across the continent; and the 
rapidity with which our country is interlaeed 
with costly works of improvement attest the fact 
that the American people who dig and delve 
most assiduously, apply least of their gains to 
the gratification of purely selfish purposes, and 


4 


recognize most fully the truth that man holds 
the treasures which God confides to him as trus- 
tee for his feebler fellow-men. True itis that 
base men seek place, but none will deny that 
every revered name would be stricken from the 
scrollof sages, statesmen, and philanthropists, if 
doubt and suspicion attached to all who bave 
been willing to encounter the dangers and toils 
of public position in times of trial, andin the 
dark hours of the struggle for a great cause have 
been cheered by the hope that good men might 
love them and posterity honor their names. 

Neveriheless, the patronage of our Govern- 
ment is a power the people should estimate in 
calculating the magnitude of a contest between 
them and the Executive of the country. The 
President is the fountain of political honor. To 
him belongs the nomination of the thousands of 
officers upon our civil list, and of the army and 
the navy. His ministers control contracts in- 
volving enough millions ofdollars to make them 
prizes eagerly sought by men whose counsels 
are not without weight in social and business 
circles, as well as in the political” combinations 
of theday. Theagents of the Executive traverse. 
evety wailroute, are found in the thousand post 
towns of the country, swarm in our ports of 
entry, and may be said to be omnipresent as the 
Imperial police of France, but wear no uniform 
or badge by which the public may be admon- 
ished that they may have a secret reason for the 
political faith they express, or are suborned 
against the public good. 

I pause to remark in this connection that this 
now is and ever will be a source of danger, and to 
add that, though President Johnson, who, when 
/-amember of the Senate, proposed in one brief 
session nine amendments to the Constitution, 
now regards that instrument as perfect in all its 
proportions, and deprecates the suggestion of an 
amendment as calculated to impair its sacred- 
ness in public esteem, it will one day be the 
duty of the people so to modify it as to provide 
that subordinate offices shail be held for a defi- 
nite period, and thus remove from the absolute 
control of the Executive the constantly increas- 
ing number of employees of the Government. 
When the soldiers who were wounded in follow- 
ing and maintaining the flag of our country, 
and who now, in Jieu of the lucrative business 
they abandoned for that purpose, are holding 
clerkships and other positions under the Go- 
veroment, have to give place’to those who 
fought the great contest against the supremacy 
of that flag, as the logic of the President’s new 
position will necessitate, this point will attract 
the attention of the public, and, until then, I 
pass it. 

The contest now prevailing is not between the 
parties indicated by the President on the 22d of 
February, when within the borders, if not atthe 
heart of the enemy’s country, he pointed out a8 
those upon whom turbulent faction might justi- 
fiably inflict its horrors, the honored Senator 
from Massachusetts and the brave old man 
whose indomitable courage and energy gave 
| Pennsylvania, in spite of an opposing majority 
of the people, her public school system, and 
who, through a life stretching beyond the allot- 
ted three score years and ten, has never swerved 
from principle or failed to befriend the poor, the 
ignorant, the oppressed, and the otherwise 
friendless, who is venerated by all true men, and 
whose name will be honored by the teeming mil- 
lions of the people of our State. The people under- 
stand that controversy is not between Congress 
and the Executive, but is between the Executive 








5 


and themselves; the question being the mainte- 
vance of the rights of that co-ordinate branch of 
the Government through which the voice of the 
people is heard in,the government of the nation. 
Tbe attempt of the President is to coerce the 
popular will. Of the result I have no doubt. 
They who have involved themselves in three 
thousand millions of debt, and maintained fierce 
war until there was one dead in every house, 
will not fail now to maintain that for which they 
' toade these sacrifices. It isonly necessary that 
the issue should be fairly stated and fully eluci- 
dated to overwhelm him, who, in order that his 
“power may be absolute during the brief term 
which, under the Constitution, he is to hold the 
reins, would subvert the principles of the Con- 
8 itution. To that end I propose briefly to ex- 
amine the career of the present accidental Pre- 
sident of the United States. 

He was for a time military governor of Ten- 
nessee, and owes his elevation to the Vice Presi- 
dency to the fact that he did not retire from tbe 
Senate with those with whom he had previously 
co-operated, and to his conduct and public ut- 
terances while in that office. Though his 
earlier career had been creditable to him as a 

citizen, and had secured him the confidence of 
the people of his State, there had been nothing 
in it to attract in a special degree the affection- 
are attention of the country. He had never 
borne arms in the country’s service; and though 
vehement in declamation and much given to 
speaking, he was not distinguished as an orator. 
Apart from his support of the homestead bill 
his speeches and his votes were a)l in the iuter- 
est of what he was pleased to regard as his sec- 
‘tion, the slaveholding States of the country, and 
the party for which, alas, his affinities are now 
more powerful than his patriotism. Even those 
who now surround him, and to whom he gives 
his confidence, prominent amoung whom is our 
well-known townsman, Hon. Thomas B. Fio. 
rence, can hardly have persuaded him that he 
owed his election to the Vice Presidency to these 
facts; yet he is exercising all the functions of | 
his office as though duty and gratitude required 
him to look to the antecedents alone for a key to 
the wishes, purposes, and convictions of the 
people who opened the possibility of his present 
position to him; and has not hesitated to an- 
pounce more flagrantly than John Tyler ever 
did the purpose of using the patronage of the 
Government for the promotion of his insane 
ambition by saying to a citizen of Pennsylvania, 
and in the presence of one of her representa- 
tives, that he ‘‘holds the offices at his disposal 
for his friends and the friends of his friends.”’ 
Let us then refer to his conduct and remarks 
while Military Governor of Tennessee, in order 
to ascertain what were the pledges upon which 
the people nominated and elected him, and how 
far bis manner of redeeming them justifies popu- 
Jar confidence in his honor and veracity. 
During 1863 he twice visited Washington and 
conferred with many members of both houses 
of Gongress on, among other topics, the neces- 
sity of repealing the clause in the confiscation 
act, which provides that it should not ‘‘be so con- 
strued as to work a forfeiture of the real estate 
of the offender beyond his natural life.”’ I have 
-avyivid recollection of the earnestness of his 

“manner in the conference with which he honor- 
edme. Much of his language was more forci- 
ble than elegant. I could not with propriety 
give a verbatim report of his remarks ; but this 
I maysay that he pressed upon me most earnestly 
the assurance that if we permitted the war to 











close without having provided for the confisea- 
tion and division, by grant, to discharged sol- 
diers, or sale, of the large landed estates of the 
aristocracy in Tennessee, we would fail in our 
duty to the Republic and sacrifice the white 
Union men of that State as well as the freed- 
men, ‘*Sir,?? said he, ‘‘ you cannot confiscate 
under that law, and if you permit those people 
to return and assume the commanding social 
position which the possession of their estates 
will give them, you will not puvish a prominent 
traitor in Tennessee, and will make it necessary 
for the Union mento abandon their property 
and the State; forif you attempt to try one of 
them by a jury of the vicinage he will be ac- 
quitted by sympathizing friends, and the prose- 
cuting officer and witnesses will be huvg from 
the branches of the nearest tree to the court- 
house door.’? Ido not mention this incident 
for the first time. The statement is doubtless 
familiar to many of you, for when, after his 
nomination, I was interrogated by earnest men 
who had learned to doubt every Southern slave- 
holder, and feared that the nomination of An- 
drew Jobnson was a mistake, I answered by re- 
porting the interview, andin my many addresses 
before the people during the campaign frequently 
referred to it. 

It were better, however, to appeal to the re- 
cord of his publicacts, and, in doing so, I shall 
confine my allusions to facts mentioned in a 
sketch, which, as [ was the fellow-boarder of 
its accomplished author while engaged upon it, 
I could not avoid knowing had the benefit of 
Mr. Johnson’s personal supervision. 

The nomination of Andrew Johnson as Mili. 
tary Governor of Tennessee was confirmed by 
the Senate on the 5th of March, 1862, and he 
entered upon the duties of his office one week 
thereafter. One of his first official acts was to 
publish ‘tan appeal to the people,”’ the follow- 
ing extract from which is a startling com- 
mentary on the doctrine announced in his veto 
of the Freedmen’s Bureau bill, which, while ad- 
mitting that itis ‘the unquestionable right of 
Congress. to judge, each House for itself, of 
the election returns and qualitications of its own 
members,’ denies the right of the representatives 
ofthe people and the States in concurrence with 
the President to pass upon the character of the 
constitution under which such representatives 
have been chosen, and by which States the gov- 
ernments of which have been overthrown pro- 
pose to resume their practical relations to the 
Union. ‘In such a lamentable crisis,’? said he, 
**the Government of the United States could 
not be unomindfulof its high constitutional obii- 
gations to guarantee to every State in this Union 
a republican form of government, an obligation 
which every State has a direct and immediate inte- 
restin having observed toward every other State.”? 

Before the month of March had passed he 
ordered the mayor and council of Nashville to 
take the oath of allegiance, and vacated their 
Offices and sent them all to the penitentiary be- 
cause they refused to obey the order. ‘‘ The 
press throughout the State,”? says Mr. Frank 
Moore, ‘‘ was placed under proper supervision, 
and it was soon understood that spoken or writ- 
ten treason would subject the offenders to jus- 
tice. In April the editor of the Nashvilis 
Banner was arre-ted and his paper suppressed ”’ 
So heartily did Governor Johnson then seem to 
abbor treason that he arrested and imprisoned 
Judge Guild for that offence. On the 9th of 
May he issned a proclamation in which he re- 
cited that ‘* persons unfriendly to the Govern~ 


ment of the United States’? were ‘going 
at large through many of the counties 
of the State, arresting, maltreating, and 
plundering Union citizens, and announced 
‘** that in every instance in which a Union man 
is arrested and maltreated by the marauding 
bands aforesaid, five or more rebels, from the 
most prominent in the immediate neighbor- 
hood, shall be arrested, imprisoned, and other- 
wise dealt with as the nature of the case may 
require; and further, in all cases where the 
property of citizens loyal to the Government of 
the United States is taken or destroyed, full and 
ample remuneration shall be made to them out 
of the property of such rebels in the vicinity as 
have sympathized with and given aid, comfort, 
information, or encouragement to the parties 
committing such depredations.”’ 


The people of Nashville elected a secessionist 
to the office of judge of the circuit court, and 
he gave him his commission; ‘‘ but,’? says his 
biographer, *‘ fearing that he might abuse the 
power thus vested in him, ordered nis arrest, 
and sent him to the penitentiary on the same 
day.”? Time will not permit me to notice a 
tithe of the acts by which he effaced the suspi- 
cion that his apparent devotion to justice and 
the Union resulted from a personal contro- 
versy between him and the more aristocratic 
leaders of the South, and satisfied the loyal 
people of the country that he hated treason 
because it was a crime, and would use any 
rower with which they might invest him to 
, punish the leaders of the rebellion, and pre- 
vent them from ever acquiring weight or influ- 
ence in the councils of the nation. Indeed, one 
cannot, when reading his remarks accepting 
the nomination for Vice President, or those he 
made to the colored people of Tennessee, doubt 
that such was for a time his own belief, for, 
as Kinglake said of another— 


It is believed that men do him wrong who speak 
of him as void of allidea of truth. He understood 
truth, and ia conversation be habitually preferred 
it to falsehood; bu; his truthfu ness (though not 
perhaps contrived for such an end, ) some.imes be 
came a means of deception; because, after gene- 
rating confidence, 1t would suddenly break down 
under the pressure of a strong motive. He could 
yaintain friendly relations with a man,and speak 
frankly and truthfully to him for seven years, and 
then suddenly deceive him. Ofcourse, men find- 
ing themselves ensnared by what had appeared to 
be honesty in his character, were naturally in- 
olined to believe that every semblance of a good 

uality was a mask; but it is more consistent with 
the principles ofhamen nature to believe that a 
truthfulness continuing for seven years was a 
genuine remnant of virtue than that it was a 
mere preparation for falsehood. 


Let me, in this connection, briefly remind you 
how explicit he was when accepting the nomi- 
nation: by some extracts from his address: 


The question is whether man is capable of self- 
government Tthold, with Jefferson, that govern- 
ment was made for tho convenience of man, and 
not man for government. Tne laws and constitu- 
tions were designed as instruments to promote his 
welfare. And hence, from this principle, Lconciude 
that goveraments can and ought to be changed 
and amended to conform tothe wants to the re- 
quirements and progress of the people, and the 
enlightened spirit of the age. * * * * 

And let me say ‘hat nowis the time to secure 
these fundamental principles, while the land is 
rent with anarchy and upbeaves with the throes of 
@ mighty revolution. While society is in this di3- 
erdered state, and we are seeking security, let us 
fix the foundations of the Government on princi- 
Sine of eternal justice which will endure fer all 

me. 








Again: 


But in calling a convention to restore tho 
State, who shall restore and ré-establish it? Shali 
the man who gave his influence and his means to 
destroy the Government? Is he to participate in 
the great work of reorganization? Shall he who 
brougnt this misery upon tne State be permitted 
to controlitsdestinies? 1Ifthis beso, then all this 
precious blood of our brave soldiers and officers so 
freely poured out will nave been wantonly spilled. 
All the glorious victories won by our noble armies 
will go fur naught, and allthe battle-fields which 
have been sown with dead heroes during the re. 
beilion will heve been made memorabie in yain. 

Why all this carnage and devastation? It 
was that treason might be put down and traitors 
punished. Therefore [ say that traitors should 
take a back seatin the work of restoration. If 
there be but five thousand men in Tennessee loyal 
to the Constitution, loyal to freedom, loyal to jus- 
tice, these true and faithful men should control the 
work of reorganization and reformation absolute- 
ly. Isay tuat the traitor has ceased to be a citi- 
zen, and in joining the rebellion has become a 
publicenemy. He forfeited his right to vote with . 


joyal men when he renounced his citizenship and 


sought to destroy our Government. We say to 
the most honest and industrious foreigner who 
comes from England or Germany to dwell among 
us, and to add to the wealth of the couniry, *‘Be- 
fore you can bea citizen you must stay here ior 
five years.’? If we are so cautious about foreign- 
ers, who voluntarily renounce their homes to live 
with us, what sould we say to the traitor who, 
aithough born and reared among us, has raised a 
parricidal hand against the Government which 
always protected him? My judgmentis that he 
should be subjected to a severe ordeal before he is 
res ored to citizenship. A fellow who takes the 
oath merely to save his property, and denies the 
validity of the oath, is a perjured man, and not to 
ba trusted, Sefore these repenting rebels can be 
trusted let them bring forth the fruits of repent - 
ance. He who helpedto make all these widows 
and orphans—who draped the streets of Nashviile 
in mourning—should suffer for his great crime. 
The work is in our own hands. 


And again: 

Ah! these rebel leaders have a strong personal 
reason for holding out, to save their necks from 
the halter; and these leaders must feel the power 
of the Government! Treason must be made odious, 
and traioors must be punished and impoverishec. 
Their great plantations must be seized, and di- 
vided into small farms, and sold to honest, indus- 
trious men. The aay for protecting the lands and 
negroes of these authors of revellion is past. It ts 
nizh time it was. I have been most deeply pained 
at some things which have come under my obser- 
vation. We get menin command who, under the 
influence of flattery, fawning, and caressing, 
graut protection to the rich traitor, while the poor 
Union man stands out in uhe cold, often unable to 
get a receipt or a voucher forhislosses. Thetruitor 
can get lucrative contracts, while the loyal manis 
pushed aside, unable to obtain a recognition. 


But time flowed on, and as the election ap- 
proached he became more emphatic. It was to 
be held the 9th of November, and on the eve- 
ning of the 24th of October the colored people of 
Nashville and the vicinity paraded in great num- 
bers, bearing torches, transparencies, and ban- 
ners, and Governor Johnson found it convenient 
to meet and address them. War was still fla- 
grant, and the Southern aristocracy were Dot to 
be represented in the Electoral College, the 
members of which were to vote for him or Mr. 
Pendleton as Vice President. But the people of 
the North, who believed that justice, equal and 
exact justice to all, was the only sign by which 
the rebellion could be conquered, would vote. 
He had been a Democrat and a slavebolder, and 
was then penetrated with the belief he has since 
expressed, that the Radicals in the convention 
had opposed his nomination on that account. 
It is possible that this knowledge may have in- 


duced him, eagerly ambitious and familiar with 
political quantities as he was, to make the ad- 
dress, or have given tone to his remarks. But 
be that as it may, it is certain that his words 
were not cold and contemptuous as those which, 
as President, he uttered to the few returning 
braves who represented a regiment that had 
been thrice recruited because it had been thrice 
decimated in battle. But let him speak for him- 
self, “Negro equality, indeed,” cried he; ‘‘why 
pass any day along the sidewalk of High street, 
where these aristocrats more particularly dwell— 
these aristocrats whose sons are now in the 
hands of guerillas and cut-throats who prowl 
aud rob and murder around our city—pass by 
these dwellings, I say, and you will see as many 
mulatto aS negro children, the former bearing 
an unmistakable resemblance to their aristo- 
cratic owners. Colored men of Tennessee, this, 
too, shall cease. Your wives and daughters 
shall no longer be dragged into a concubinage, 
compared to which polygamy is a virtue,to satisfy 
the brntal lusts of slaveholders and overseers. 
Thenceforth the sanctity of God’s holy law of 
marriage shall be respected in your persons, and 
the great State of Tennessee shall no more give 
her sanction to your degradation and your 
shame.”? And having in language which you all 
remember promised to be their Moses, he added: 


Ispexk now as one who feels the world his 
country and all who love equal rights his friends. 
I speak, too, as a citizen of Tennessee. I am 
here on my own soil; and here I mean to stay and 
fight this battle of truth and justice to a tri- 
umphant end. Rebellion and slavery shall, by 
God’s good help, no longer pollate our State. 
Loyal men, whether white or black, shall alone 
control her destinies; and when this strife in 
which we are all engaged is past, I .rust, I know, 
we shallhave abetter state of things, and shall 
ail rejoice that honest labor reaps the fruit of is 
own industry, and that eyery man has a fgir 
chance in the race of life. 


confidence of his abused fellow-citizens, has 
‘been to all these pledges, let that unfaltering 
patriot, Wm. G. Brownlow, Governor of Ten- 
nessee, tell. I havea letter from him, written 
just one week ago. It isa fearful commentary 
on the untrustworthiness of this man’s most 
sacred pledges. That you may hear exactly 
what hesays I read it all, from date tosignature : 


EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, 
NAS&VILLU, March 8, 1866. 
Hon. Wm. D. Kelley, House of Representatives: 

DEAR SiR: Enclosed I send you acopy of my 
proclamation, from which you will learn that a 
action of twenty-one disorganizers have, in the 
true spirit of the late iniquitous rebellion, with- 
drawn, and reduced our Houseef Representatives 
below a quorum. I need not add further remarks, 
a the proclamation fully discusses the points at 

sue, 

On Friday last the election of county officers 
took place throughout the State, such as clerks, 
sherifi:, justices, trustees, and tax collectors, and 
in Middle and West Tennessee the rebels have 
made a clean sweep, turning the Union men out and 
électing theirown candidates, who eleciioneered 
for office on the ground that they were rebels, and 
-had either served in the rebel armyorin some 
other capacity had given theirinfluence to the 
c21use of TREASON and traitors. 

When Richmond fell and T,ee surrendered, 
rebels, and many who sympathized with them, 
were very respectful to Union men, often obsequi- 
ous—guilty culprits, they evidently feared arrest 
and punishment, and felt that to be let alone and 
allowed to live was all they had aright to expect. 
But, since pardons have been so wultiplied, and 
bo man has been punished, they have everywhere 
become impudent and defiant, vatil, in most coun- 
t esin Middle and Wes ‘T'ennessee it is disreputa— 
tae to have been a@ Union man, or, aga Southern 











T 


man, to have served in the Union army. And 
matters are growing worse; the reconstructed 
traitors openly cursing loyal men, and threaten- 
ing that they have the Presidegt on their side, 
while we all feel that the PresfMdent’s policy is 
ruinous to us, 

When I put the President in nomination at Bal- 
timore forthe Vice Presidency, 1 felt that he had 
so thoroughly commitced himself to tra Union 
cause,and had been so badlytreated by tha rebels, 
it was impossible for him everto get round to them 
again; but I give him up as lost tothe Union 
party, and as the man who isto head the rebeis 
and Democrats. Every rebel in all this country, 
every McClellan man, and every ex- guerilla chief 
are loud and enthusiastic in praise of the Presi- 
dent. ‘Ihe men who, but a few months since, were 
cursing him for an abolitionist and traitor, and 
wishing him executed, are now for executing all 
who dare to oppose his policy, or even doubi its 
success. 

There is twice the amount of bitterness and in- 
tolerance in the South, to-day, toward the Union 
and everything Northern than there was at thea. 
time of Lee’s surrender. Abuse of Union men, of 
the radicals in Congress, and self-assumed supe- 
riority on the part of the Southern chivalry have 
arisen to such a height that loyal men eannot 
travel on a steamboat orin a railroad car without 
being insulted. Asit was during the war, soit is 
now, all concessions from the North, or from the 
majority in Congress, are regarded as evidences of 
fear; ail the ola rebel papers of 1861. and many 
new ones, arein full blast, threatening Congress 
and the North with ultimate vengeance, and 
boasting of Southern prowess. The most popular 
men in the largest portion of Tennessee, to dar, 
are the men must distinguished for their hostility 
tothe North, and what they are pleased to call 
the ‘‘Radical Congress,’? and they are the class 
of men who are selecied to fill offices, as the late 
county elections show. The same istrue of the 
entire South, only more so! in a wore, they are 
resolved on breaking up the Government, and 
they expect to carry out their schemes through the 
baliot-box,and how men of candor and iatellixence 
can represent them as Joyal and kindly-disposed 
is a mystery to me, even in this age of rebellion 
and treachery. I do not understand them, and 


, : i | My Opportunities for learning their temper and 
How faithless this man, who now claims the 


ultimate purposes are as good as those of most 
men. 

Why, sir, many of them are expecting the Presi- 
dent to disperse Congress with the bayonet, as 

Jromwell dispersed the Long Parliament. ‘Tho 
Southern heart is rapidly being fired to deeds or 
war, and ail this, and more, as I believe, has been 
occasioned by the missakes of the President. 

His plan of trusting rebels with their State go- 
vernments has had an effect exactly the opposite 
of what bheintended. It has rvoined the prospects 
ofAbe Union men, and they feel that there is no 
safety for them, unless Congress shall choose to 
protect them. Even three days ago General 
Tbomas had to send troops into Marshall county, 
some sixty miles distant, to protect loyal men and 
freedmen who were fleeing tur safety and coming 
to this city. 

So faras £ am individually concerned the In- 
temperate abuse of revels, the denunciation and 
blackguardism of their reconstructed journalsasthse 
threats of personal violence from their amnestied 
patriots, and the anonymous Jetters of eowards 
threatening my assassination all fall harmless at 
my feet. No earthly power can drive me from the 
support of the men and party who fought the bat. 
tles of the late w-r and put down the rebailion. 

With kind recollections of the past, and the hope 
of a pleasant future, W. G. BRrownN.Low, 


Governor of Tennessee. 


In view of the statements of Governor Brown- 
low, and its corroborations borne to us by every 
mail from the South, may I not inquire whether 
Andrew Jobtnson is in his true place, ‘‘if 
traitors should take a back seat in the work of 
restoration ?”? In view of his perfidious aban- 
donment of ihe Union men of the South, do not 
bis denunciations of Congress remind you of 
Louis Napoleon’s cry that the Congress of 
France had beconie a hot-bed of plots and con- 


spiracies? And has he, under the tuition of 
his new friends, been studying the history of 
revolutionary France, that he denounces the 
joint Committee on Reconstruction, composed 
as it is of ‘ited of the purest statesmen of the 
country, as an irresponsible Ceutral Directory? 
That phrase recalls to mind the incidents of the 
i8th Brumaire. He should have known his 
countrymen better than to have referred to such 
an example! 

On the 18th Brumaire, the executive power 
of France was in a Central Directory. The con- 
dition of the country, as we find it in Thiers, 
reminds us of that of the unhappy South. He 
says, after referring to the victories of Mt. 
Tabor and Abonkir, ‘‘The greatest perils were 
not without, but within. The disorganized 
government, unruly parties which would not 
submit to authority, and which, nevertheless, 
were not strong enough to possess themselves 
of it—a kind of social dissolution everywhere, 
and robbery, a sign of that dissolution, infesting 
the high-roads, especially in provinces formerly 
torn by civil ‘war—such was the state of the 
republic.*? 

When, on the 18th of October, Napoleon, fresh 
from the expedition to Syria, found his Way s8e- 
eretly to his home in the. Rue Chantereise, his 
first visit was to the president of the Directory, 
Gohier, with whom he arranged that he should 
be presented to the Directory the next day. 
After his presentation, he addressed the su- 
preme magistrate. Appealing to their gratitude 
by referring to his past services, less directly, 
but more elegantly, than is the habit of our 
President, he said ‘‘that, after consolidating 
the esiablishment of his armies in Egypt by the 
victories. of Monnt Tabor and Aboukir, and 
committing the charge of it to a general quali- 
fied to insure its prosperity, he had left it to fly 
to the succor of the Repubiic, which he believed 
to be undone. He had found it saved by the 
exploits of brethren in arms, and in this he re- 
joiced.”? ‘*Never,?? he added, clapping his 
hand to his sword, ‘never would he draw it 
bat in defence of that Repnublie.?? 

The leaders of all the parties of France 
visited himin turn. ‘‘Two principal parties,”? 
gays Thiers, ‘‘and a third, a subdivision of the 
two others, offered themselves to him, and were 
disposed to serve him if he adopted their views. 
These were known as the patriots, the moderates, 
and, lastly, the pourris, as they wire called, the 
rotten of ailtiraes and of all factions.”’ "The 
pourris were the French equivalent of the Tyler 
party, and are now represented by those oflice- 
holders who, having been fierce Republicans, 
proclaim themselves the friends ‘‘of Andrew 
Johnson and a white man’s Government.” 
When" referring to them Thiers says ‘the 
pourris, the rotten, were all the rogues, all the 
intriguers, who were striving to make their 
fortune, who had dishonored themselves in 
making it, and who were still bent on making 
it at the same price. These followed Barras 
and Fouche, the minister of police. Among 
them were men of all sorts—Jacobins, mode- 
rates, and even royalists.”? The never-to-be-for- 
gotten meeting in front of the Executive Man- 
sion on the 22d of February confirms most 
strikingly the fact that history not only repeats 
itself, but doesit with accuracy of detail. It is 
said that ‘*Bonaparte felt a horror of the turbu- 
lent and a disyust of the corrupt.”? He there- 
fore shrunk from personal contact with the 
pourris, and repulsed them until their leaders 
became absolutely necessary to his purposes. 





‘* Meanwhile,”? says Allison, ‘‘in his secret 
intercourse with the different leaders, Napoleon 
was indefatigable in his endeavors to disarm a!) 
Opposition, ~ Master of the most profound dis- 
simulation, he declared himself to the chiefs of 
the different parties penetrated with the ideas 
which he was aware would be most acceptabix 
to their minds. To one he protested that he 
certainly did desire to play the part of Wa-h- 
ington, but only in conjunction with Sityes— 
the proudest day of his life would be that when 
he retired from power; to another, that the part 
of Cromwell appeared to him ignoble, becaus 
it was that of an imposter; to the friends of 
8ityes he professed himself impressed with the 
most profound respect for that mighty intellect, 
before which the genius of Mirabeau had pro:- 
trated itself; that, for his own part, he could only 
head the armies, and leave to others the forma- 
tion of the constitution. To all the Jacobins 
who approached him he spoke of the extinction 
of liberty, the tyranny of the Directory, and used 
terms which sufficiently recalled the famous 
proclamation which had given the first impulse to 
the revolution of the 18th Fructidor.”? He pub- 
licly ordered a review of the troops for the morn- 
ing of the 18th Brumaire, after which he would, 
he said, set off to take command of the army ou 
the frontier. 

Thus he perfected his plan for the over- 
throw of the Republic. At daybreak of the 
9th of November, known as the 18th Bru- 
maire, the Boulevards were filled with a splen- 
did body of cavalry, and all the generals in Paris 
repaired in full dress to the Rue Chantereine. 
To lull the suspicions of the President of the 
Directory, Bonaparte had announced to him 
familiarly that he would dine with him on that 
day. The leaders of the Deputies of the An- 
cients, in pursuance of a conspiracy, had deter- 
mined to announce at the opening of the session 
that the republic was in danger, but to allay the 
fears of the uncorrupted members by assuring 
them that it would be saved by the protecting 
arm of General Bonaparte. On the arrival of 
the unusual hour at which the meeting had 
been called, the president of the commission 
charged with watching over the legislative body 
opened the proceedings. ‘*The Republic,” said 
he, ‘‘is menaced at ones by the anarchists and 
the enemy; we must instantly take measures 
for the public safety. We may reckon on the 
support of General Bonaparte. It is uader the 
shadow of his protecting arm that the Councila 
must deliberate on the measures required by the 
interests of the Republic.?? The speaker de 
clared debate or remonstrance to be out oF 
order, and the decree was adopted. The scldiers, 
who believed, as did the people, that they had 
been ordered out for review, surrounded the 
Hall of the Ancients, and Bonaparte, attended 
by Moreau, Macdonald, Berthier, Marat, Lan 
nes, Marmont, and Lefebvre entered, and pro- 
ceeded to the bar of the Hall of the Ancients. 

After a moment’s pause, Bonaparte said: 
“Citizen Representatives, the Republic was 
about to perish, when you saved it; woe 10 
those who shall attempt to oppose your decree; 
aided by my braye companions in arms, I will 
speedily crush them to the earth. You are 
the coliected wisdom of the nation; if is for 
you to point out the measures which may save 
it. I come, surrounded by all the generals, to 
offer you the support of their arms’ I name 
Lefebvre my lieutenant. I wiil faithfully dis 
charge the duty you have entrusted to mse. 
Let none seek in the past examples to Tegue 


late the present. Nothing in history has any 
resemblance to the close of the eigthteenth 
century; nothing in the eighteenth century 
resembles this moment. We are resolved to 
have a Republic; we are resolved to have it 
founded on true liberty and a representative 
“system. I swear it in my own name and in 
that of my companions jin arms.”? From the 
moment in which he uttered that hollow oath 
till that of his downfall the story of Bonaparte 
was the history of the French Government. 
The perjury: freighted breath of him who swore 
to protect the Republic had killed it. The 
power which enabled Bonaparte to destroy the 
Republic he thus swore to protect was dissimu- 
lation; the essential agency was the success 
with which he impressed the chiefs of the dif- 
ferent parties with the belief that he was con- 
trolled by the ideas in which they had faith. 
From history or his own experience, Andrew 
Johnson has learned that dissimulation alone 
will enable him to execute his purposes. To 
have appealed to the persuasive power of pa- 
tronage immediately upon assuming office would 
have awakened suspicion, and he is too expe- 
rienced and crafty a politician for that. He 
knew that the allies of the rebels were in a 
hopeless minority in the North, and that to 
restore the old order of things—a united South 
and a divided North—he must secure a mea- 


sure of popular confidence before he disclosed: 


his purposes even to the pourris. It wes by 
professing fidelity to the Republics of 1793 
and 1848 that the Bonapartes were able to over- 
throw them. And his pnrpose is to put this 
country into the hands of theimpenitent rebels 
of the South by professing to adhere to the 
Union party till he shall have divided its Goun- 
sels and wrought its overthrow. In April last, 
while the loyal heart of the North throbbed 
with indignation, he did not denounce the radi- 
cils, or insist upon it that ‘*‘ we must repose con- 
fidence in somebody, and ought to trust the 
people of the South.”? Toa delegation of loyal 
Southerners, he then said: 

But if asked what should be done with the assas- 
sin, what shouli be the penalty—the forfeit ex- 
acted. Lknow what responsedwellsin every bosom 
Itisthat he should pay the forieic with his life 
And hence we see there are times when mercy and 
clemency, without justice,become acrime, * * * * 
-Andso Lreturn to where [ started from, and again 
repeat that itis time our people were taught to 


know that treason is a crime, not a mere political 


difference, nor a mere contest between two par- 
ties, in which ono succeeded andthe other has 
simply failed. They must know iu is treason; for, 

if they had succeeded, the life of the nation would 
have been reft from it, "the Union would have been 
destroyed. Surely the Cons itution sufficiently 
detines treason. it consists in levying war against 
the United States, and in giving their enemies 
aid and comfort. With this definition, it requires 
the exerciseof no great acumen io ascertain. who 
are traitors. It requires no great perception to 
tell who have levied war agiinst the United States; 
nor does it require any great stretch of reasoning 
to ascertain who has given aid to the enemies of 
the United States; and when the Government of 
ihe United States does ascertain who are the con- 
scious and inteliigent traitors, the penalty and the 
forfeit should be paid. 


If mercy without justice be a crime, who shall 
absolve Andrew Johnson from the consequen- 
ces of his great transgression? Has he the 
acumen to discover who have been traitors? 
And is not that mercy without justice which, in 
violation of the express provisions of law, has re- 
stored to bloody-handed traitors immense landed 
estates, the titles to which were absolutely 
vested in the United States, and, therefore, be- 


9 








yond his lawful control? Tested by his own 
standards you may be disposed to ask wherein 
his guilt differs from that of the ‘‘stern states- 
mau”? whose exultation at the triumph of 
his beloved South is for yet a little while re- 
strained by the strong walls of Fortress Monroe? 
But let us not hasten to conclusions. The sub- 
dued tones of his voice and the broad generali- 
lies in which he cloaks his designs still deceiva 
some patriotic people. They have not ecounded 
the shoals and depths of a nature like his. Let 
me, rapidly as I can, for your patience must 
weary, illustrate his methods for overthrowing 
the party that maintained the war and conquered 
his rebellious section. 

Bold as partial success has made him, he 
still, in his public addresses, speaks of loy- 
alty, and in his clebrated interview with the 
representatives of the Legislature of recon- 
structed Virginia, which occurred the day after 
he had exhibited himself in such painful 
contrast with the representatives ofthe ‘‘in- 
ferior race’? whom he had honored with an in- 
terview, he insisted that none but loyal men 
must be admitted to the councils of the nation. 
It is, however, fortunate for the country that he 
is less reticent than Bonaparte, or not so excel- 
lent a reader of the bearts of men, or that our 
more popular Government constrains a more 
freqnent expression of opinion, for he has en- 
abled us to understand the significance with 
which he uses the word loyal, and the popular 
phrases by which he hopes to delude and divida 
the people of the North. 

Having at that time faith in his integrity, and 
being anxious to lend him anyaid [ could in tha 
execution of the high duties confided to him, I 
bnee filled the role performed by Major George 
L. Stearns, and more recently by Governor Cox, 
of Ohio: It had been my privilege to pass au 
hour in close and friendly intercourse with him 
in the ante room to the Executive chamber, in 
the early partof the month of April last, on the 
occasion of the last call I was permitted to maka 
on Abrabam Lincoln. 


During that interview he referred very kindly 
to my speech in favor of universal suffrage, and 
requested another copy, saying he had mislaid 
the one he had read with so much pleasure, and 
wished it that he might refer to some of the au- 
thorities cited. When I next saw him he was 
President of the United States, but had not 
taken up his abode in the Executive Mansion. ’ 
Having arrived in Washington in the evening, I 
delayed my call upon bim tillthe next morning, 
and having heard that Senator Sumner had 
had a protracted interview with him that 
day, with General Gantt, of Arkansas, I went 
to his room, where I found General Carl 
Schurz, fresh from North Caroliva and the 
surrender of Johneton’s army. He had, as 
you remember, commanded a division of the 
conquering army in its wonderful march 
through the enemy’s country, and was still in 
commission. Senator Sumner detailed the 
points the President and he had discussed, 
and we parted with mutual congratulations 
that the Presidential office was in the hands of 
one who abborred treason, was determined to 
punish traitors, and who, being familiar with 
the ignorance and degradation of the poor 
whites of the South, knew how grievously they 
had been misled, and was tkerefore capable 
of pardoning them. We were gratified to be 
assured that he did not differ with us upon the 
necessity of availing ourselves, in the reorga- 
nization of the South, of the politicat power of 


10 


tlre loyal people of that section without regard 
to lineage or past prejudices, as we lad availed 
ourselves of their mMitary power in the extreme 
exigency of the country. 

Accompanied by General Gantt, I waited 
upon President Johnson the next morning at his 
residence in the mansion of the Hon. Samuel 
Hooper, of Massachusetts. Our interview was 
satisfactory, but chiefly so in this: That the 
point on which the President was most clear was, 
that there must be no haste in the work of recon- 
struction ; that time was our ablest ally; that 
these people having overthrown their govern- 
ment must be permitted to feel the want of go-. 
vernment, and to suffer from its want, that they 
might be brought to comprehend the true foun- 
dations of just government. It was in his 
judgment—for the question of the possibility of 
a called session of Congress was incidentally 
touched on—fortunate that Congress.did not 
meet at an earlier day, for in the interim we 
would be able to ascertain the true spirit of the 
people of the South; they would discover and 
appreciate the just demands of those who had 
maintained the Government, and we would all 
be better able to judge how far the newly-eman- 
cipated citizens could be trusted with political 
power. 

The point specially pressed by General Gantt 
was the agency through which argument, per- 
suasion, and information could be presented to 

‘the people of the rebellious district. The here- 
sies which had produced the rebellion could 
thus, in his judgment, soon be eradicated. 
These, he said, weretwo: The doctrine of State 
sovereignty or the right of secession, and the 
doctrine of slavery—the right of man to hold 
property in man; and he suggested to the Pre- 
rident that while military power was maintained 
it was clearly within the limits of constitutional 
power to suppress any paper which maintained 
these doctrines within the conquered States. 
Especially did he protest against permitting any 
editor who had taught these heresies aud stimu- 
lated the people to rebellion to preside over a 
paper within any military district. The Presi- 
dent assented very distinctly to the correctness 
of the General’s views, saying that nothing 
could be more important than that the press 
Laroughout that region should be conducted in 
the interest of the Government, butin such a 
manner as not to wound the sensibilities of the 
people. He hoped, however, it would not be 
necessary to exercise such a power. Our inter- 
view was not disagreeable to the President, for, 
remarking that the time had come when he ought 
to be in the room which he occupied as an Ex- 
ecutive chamber—a room in the Treasury—he 
suggested that we should precede him, and say 
to his messenger that he had directed us to 
come and await him. We did s0, and in 
a few minutes he joined us. Our conversa- 
tion soon closed, and as we departed from 
the Presidential presence General Schurz was 
ushered in. There was great anxiety at that 
time to ascertain the President’s views on the 
leading topics of consideration. The continued 
kindness of my constituents had given me some 
prominence before the country. I was then, as 
I am very proud to be to-day, known as a radi- 
eal, and on returning to the hotel was sur- 
rounded by a number of the intelligent gentle- 
‘men who represent the newspaper press of the 
country at its capital, and whose anxiety and 
laborious efforts to sift and compare statements 
and rumors that they may truly inform the 
readers of the respective journals with which 











they communicate is too lightly esteemed. 
They would gladly have learned from meé all 


the points discussed, and the precise shade of 


the President’s opinion. But the time at my 
disposal was too brief for that. I could only 
say that the interview had been eniirely satis- 
factory tome. One of the gentlemen said to 
me that it would give a good deal of informa- 
tion to many people if I would permit them to 
say very briefly what I had said to them, and, 
drawing his pencil, wrote: “Judge Kelley, of 
Pennsyivania, had a protracted interview with 
the President to-day, and is entirely satisfied 
with his views and purposes ,?? which was read 
the next day by the- readers of all the papers 
with which the Associated Prees communicates: 

The next day I was giving an elaborate report 
of the conversation to some members of the 
Union League of this city, among whom I re- 
member were Messrs. George H. Boker, Lindley 
Smyth, and Thomas Webster. Some of my 
hearers evidently doubted that there could bs 
such entire coincidence between my well-known 
views and those of the President as I repre- 
sented. Happily, General Schurz arrived at the 
moment, and I withdrew from the conversation 


by saying, ‘‘General, be good enough to confirm | 


or contradict some statements I have just made 
by letting these gentlemen know the President’s 
expressed Opinions on certain points, for your 
interview with him was a few minutes later 
than mine.’? He did so, and confirmed my alle- 
gations at all points. 

I had other interviews with Mr. Johnson, and 
had no reason to doubt his frankness or his caz- 
dor. You may, therefore, readily imagine the 
amazement with which I read of the appoint- 
ment of a Provisional Governor for North 
Carolina, and the terms of the proclamation 
accompanying the appointment. I[ passed the 
first week of June in Boston, in attendance upon 
the anniversary meetings, two or three of which 
I was to address. The North Carolina move- 
ment occasioned the friends of the Government 


in that quarter much anxiety, and I found plea-~ 


sure in laying before them the evidence at my 
command that the President had not acted un- 
advisedly; that he was in harmony with them; 
that he did mean to make treason odions, and 
punish traitors; that this movement was only 
experimental; that he was not going to arrogate 


to himself the functions of the legislative 


branch of the Government; that he did mean 
that the reconstructed States must be put upon 
the broad basis of the rights of man, protected 
by due constitutional guarantees; and in per- 
suading them to believe with me that the Presi- 
dent was anxious for the extension of the right 
of suffrage to all, the diffusion of schools, the 
maintenance of a free press, and the establish- 
ment of truly democratic republican govern- 
ments throughout the South. In such viola- 
tion of all the opinions he had expressed to me 
was this action that [ was persuaded he acted on 
assurances that by leaving all questions to the 
people of North Carolina, as he was doing, they 
would of their own volition (at least apparently 
so) frame a government which would be ac 
ceptable to Congress and the sentiment of the 


country, and be an example to all the rest of © 


the States whose governments had been over- 
thrown. 


Immediately after my return home I repaired ~ 


to Washington to receive these assurances from 
his own lips. i 
riences to him, and the pleasure it had given 


me to explain his motives and prevent unjust — 


‘ 4 
oe 


ia 


I mentioned my Boston expe-— 


ie 


; 
i 


aT 





11 


-ertticism. He did me the honor, for which I spe- 


cially thank him now,to inquire the grounds upon 
which I had rested my arguments. I referred 
him to his continued advocacy of the home- 
stead bill—to the energy with which he had 

ressed upon me the necessity of breaking up the 


. larje landed estates of Tennessee and the entire 


South. I recurred to his pledge to the co- 
lored people of the country in his Nashville 
speech that he would be their Moses to lead 
them to liberty, and specially pressed the 
fact that I had seen it announced that he had 


~ suggested to a deputation of colored citizens of 


the District that had waited upon him, thatthey 
should be prepared, when Congress assembled, 
to memorialize it for the right of suffrage in the 
District. He did not then suggest, nor indeed 
has he ever to me, as his friend, Colonel Fio- 
rence, assured the readers of the Constitutional 
Union he has to others, that no such deputa- 
tion ever waited on him or received such sug- 
gestion from him. But, thanking me for this 
evidence of my friendship, inquired who 
the common friend was to whom I had alluded 
as coinciding with mein judgment. When I in- 
formed him that it was Major George L. Stearns 
who had been with him in Nashville for a long 
time recruiting colored troops, he said with 
much animation, ** Oh, yes, Major Stearns; I 
am not surprised to learn that he should under- 
stand me thoroughly as you do.”’ Again assur- 
ing me of the earnestness with which he would 
advocate the extension of suffrage to her colored 
citizens, were he in Tennessee, he said the peo- 
ple would soon learn that the same man in dif- 
ferent positions might have different duties to 
perform, and that while he would give all his 
personal influence to promote the extension of 
sufirage, he did not feel that he had a right, as 
chief Executive officer of the country, to force 
it upon even the people of the rebellious States, 
and added that he wished the people to be made 
to understand these things. 

Accepting the *‘ request of the monarch as a 
command to the subject,’? I made it my busi- 
ness immediately on my return home to state 
the President’s position to the conductors of all 
our journals with whom I had any acquaintance, 
and, a few weeks later, was much pained to 
learn from at least one of them that I had 
somewhat impaired my reputation as a compe- 
tent reporter of a conversation, by the fact that 
the position I had announced the President as 
occupying had been expressly disavowed. You 
may, therefore, imagine the pleasure with which 
Isome months later carried to that gentleman 
the printed letter of Major Stearns, endorsed by 
the President, containing a correct statement 
of a conversation had between them, in the 
course of which he had used precisely the lan- 
guage I had, months before, reported him as 
having used tome. It may not be improper to 
remark in passing that it is well for the Major’s 
sensibilities that he got the President to endorse 
his statement before he published it, as I heard 
him remark the other day, to a group of gentle- 
men, that Mr. Johnson had falsified, without 
exception, every assurance he had given him in 
the course of their protracted interview. 

But why should you be amazed at this? Has 
he redeemed any one of his public pledges, and 
are there not scores of gentlemen whom he has 
thus entrapped or alienated? On the 28th of 
Beptember last, Senator Wilson addressed the 
Union men of Philadelphia in* National Hall, 
and told them that on the. preceding day the 
President had assured him that the suffrage and 





other questions were, in his opinion, open for 
discussion within the party, and that he would 
not discriminate between its members on ac- 
count of the opinions they might express on 
points not settled by the Baltimore Convention. 
On the 5d of October, within a we: k, as we are 
assured by those gentlemen, he informed Megsrs. 
Glenni W. Schofield and Morrow B. Lowry, of 
this State, that his policy was fixed, that he had 
not told Mr. Wilson that he did not mean to 
support his policy by the influence of his patron- 
age, and that he ‘‘expected the radicals to 
slough off”? But why trace so tortuous 
and shameless a course. Could I do so 
with safety to my country, I would gladly 
strive to bury in olivion the unblushing tergi- 
versations of our Chief Magistrate. But the 
people should understand their President’s char- 
acter and purposes, for itis against themselves 
that he is endeavoring to excite them: He 
would make them believe that Congress—the 
people’s branch of the Government—which ‘is 
surrendered into their hands at the end of every 
sec nd year, has for sinister purposes submitted 
itself to the control and leadership of a few 
dangerous men, and that. he alone represents 
the popular will. To the public this is a new 
ery. To individuals it isan older story. He 
would make the people believe that there has 
been that in the action of Congress which was 
intended to embarrass him. But individuals 
know how ingeniously and persistently he has 
sought to impair popular confidence in those 


| Senators and Representatives upon whom Ab- 


raham Lincoln turned with most implicit con- 
fidence; and that so early as July, when he 
had been but three months in office, he shocked 
an eminent divine, whose good offices he had 
invoked, by saying that ‘‘he held the extreme men 
of the North as responsibie for the war as he did 
those ofthe South, and intended to organize a 
party that would exclude both.”? Though he 
had thus early adopted this design, it was not 
till last month that he publicly avowed the pur- 
pose of punishing Northern Radicals and putting 
them down as we had put down the armed trai- 
tors of the South. Mississippi was the State of 
the Union that had the smallest percentage of 
colored men who could read and write, or owned 
real estate, and it was to the pardoned traitor, 
whom he calls Governor of Mississippi, that, on 
the 15ch of August, he privately telegraphed the 
way to play a little trick by which to embarrass 
the Radicals and divide the Union party. Imake 
the following extract from his official despatch 
to Hon. L. Sharkey of that date: 


If you could extend the elective franchise to all 
persons of color who can read the Constitution of 
the United States in English, and write their 
names, and to all persons of color who own real 
estate valued at not less than $250, and pay taxes 
thereon, wou would completely disarm the adver- 
Sary, and set an example the other States will 
follow. This you can do with perfect safety, and you 
thus place the Southern states, in reference to 
free persons of color, upon the same basis with tne 
free States. I hope and trust your convention 
willdo this, and, as 2 consequence the Kad.cals, 
who are wild upon negro franchise, will be com- 
pletely foiled in their attempts to keep the South- 
ern States from renewing their relations to the 
Union by not accepting their Senators and KRepre- 
sentatives. 


But I must pause. The danger of the coun- 
try is not from military power. The great sol- 
dier who captured Fort Donelson and Island 
No. 10, and enabled Andrew Johnson, the hunt- 
ed refugee, to return to his home, commands the 
army for life. No St. Arnaud can order a par 


eee * oF “45 =<" 


doned traitor to his position. And having con- 
quered the rebellion on his own line, he will not 
permit the results of the people’s dearly-bought 
victories to be treacherously surrendered by any: 
but themselves. 

The Thirty-ninth Congress will maintain the 
Constitution in its integrity. It will do what 
it can, in spite of the veto power, to protect the 
public faith and credit. It will invest the 
Executive with ample power to protect and 
avenge every loyal man in the country. It will 
strive to guarantee to each State a republican 
form of government. It listens to the appeals 
of the survivors of the brigade of loyal North 
Carolinians who responded to the appeals of the 
gallant Foster, and the Alabamians who fol- 
lowed Spencer through the war, and will not 
consent to yield them helpless victims to the 
malice of the traitors who couid not corrupt or 
everawe them. The evidence taken by the 
““Central Directory”? shows that there are such 


eS 3 0112 098216002 















men throughout the South, and if they 
to be abandoned to vengeance—if the Song 
to be closed against Northern emigratiox 
they and the public debt and property—yes, 
I may add, peace—are to be confided 1 2 
care of the master spirits cf the rebellion, it 
not be done by the thirty-ninth Congress. 

The crisis of our country—perhaps the 
great Strain our institutions are to. feel—wil 
in the election of members to the Fortieth G 
gress. Neither Mr. Johnson nor the Mephi§ 
pheles of the State Department will waive # 
effort to give success to ‘* my policy ;”? but§ 
people, true to Union and liberty at what 
cost of watchfulness and labor, will thwart 
machinations. The President may pardon 
ferson Davis, but the people can prevent 
from leading Lee’s army to the Canada 
New Hampshire has sounded “the gener, 
and the citizen-soldiers of the Rapa 
drive the invaders back. 


